Has Anyone ever thought about....

[SJPEERYVA85]

I have had a question spinning around in my head for quite a while.
A note that I want to make at the outset of this dialoge is this: I know there are valid terrible abuses in the church today. I don't want anyone to get the impression that my question has ANYTHING to do with their experience. It maynot even have anything to do with mine.
That being said, this is my question... Is there a chance that the problem of some cases that seem like SA, really is a problem that some of us have had, in that we put people (pastors) up on pedistals that they didn't belong on and ,indeed, never asked to be put on in the first place? I have had that thought often about the last place I left.

I have had this experience now, 3x , and I have to wonder, is it me??
Having been in a lonely, very unhappy marriage, and being raised in a very difunctional home as a kid, am I just prone to put people where only God belongs?

I don't know if I have explained my thinking on this very well. I don't know if what I have explained is just plain crazy. Any thoughts and feedback on this topic are totally welcome. If I can figure this thing out I would be so happy cause I don't want to find myself in the 4th abusive situation.

[Jerry]

I think we all need love,,,,,,,,and we tend to gravitate to anyplace that hints a promise of that ;)

[Carmen]

I have had this experience now, 3x , and I have to wonder, is it me??
Having been in a lonely, very unhappy marriage, and being raised in a very difunctional home as a kid, am I just prone to put people where only God belongs?

You're not crazy. Every question you ask is always a good and valid question, and not just here, but anywhere.

I can empathize, I was also raised in a dysfunctional home and am currently in one too.

I think that may be part of the problem, but only part of it. I felt so bad about being held at arm's length by the pastor that I thought God was doing that to me. I still feel that as God's representatives to a fellow Christian (or anyone else) that such behavior is wrong. I was stupid enough to write about my feelings to the pastor.

But the pastor reacted as if he was more important than he really was. He knew how bad I felt and just pushed me down lower, calling me a transgressor. He even pointed out that I had no alternative but to come to their group. He implied that I had no other alternative church to go to that would be acceptable to God. With the dysfunctional situation at home I had no support there either. I was at the end of my rope when the only two people that could help did help me, a couple of Christian friends that did not go to that church at that time.

At least I now know that pastor does not equal God, not necessarily even God's servant, church does not equal Church, Christian does not necessarily mean honest, righteous, loving, caring, full of grace (not even Christians that preach grace), and that no one has a monopoly on the gospel. God can care for me even without a congregation nearby. I can survive quite well and even thrive without one. I can choose my friends and pastor, and they will be for the most part honest, righteous, loving, caring and full of grace, or striving to be those things. Of course I am striving to be those things too.

I think that we all should look inside ourselves at all times to see if there is anything there that could cause problems in relationships with others. That is the proverbial plank in the eye. But the people we deal with may have specks or planks in their eyes too. Controlling people will never admit to anything being their fault though. They can misuse this Christian virtue of looking at one's own plank first and try to fix us to that, and not let us look at anyone else's and "judge" others, so that they can get away with control and abuse. I think that we should keep our thinking caps on and make sure that what we do is not one-sided or that it cannot be misused against us.

I was too trusting, too open, and not shrewd enough. I wasn't prepared for a rejection. I reacted first instead of acting (which I did later). Next time I'll be more shrewd and make sure I act instead of react.

I don't know your situation, but from my own past and the past of some of those here, it may be low self-esteem coming from a dysfunctional environment be that a home or church, that somewhat predestines us for accepting abuse that another would not. I think that a person that is more sure of himself may see abuse immediately for what it is and reject the situation before it escalates. I have been reading about verbal abuse in Patricia Evans' The Verbally Abusive relationship. She states that most victims and abusers grew up in a dysfunctional environment and have low self-esteem, with the difference that the victims had at least some validation of their experience from someone that was sympathetic to them. I think that the situation may apply to spiritually abusive situations as well. Just my opinion.

[InTheory]

It's a great question-I'm pretty sure, though, that SA is pretty darn rampant-especially in evangelical circles. I think a lot of it has to do with the power construct and the kind of pastors/leaders that it attracts.
You're also right that many of us have put pastors on pedestals-but I'll tell you this, people that receive that kind of adulation are part of the problem, too.
There are enablers and abusers in these situations-usually not any other kinds of people (healthy people eventually leave/stop tolerating the situation).

In my opinion-and trust me, I was an enabler myself!!! :)

-Dan

[SJPEERYVA85]

"I was too trusting, too open, and not shrewd enough. I wasn't prepared for a rejection. I reacted first instead of acting (which I did later). Next time I'll be more shrewd and make sure I act instead of react.

I don't know your situation, but from my own past and the past of some of those here, it may be low self-esteem coming from a dysfunctional environment be that a home or church, that somewhat predestines us for accepting abuse that another would not. I think that a person that is more sure of himself may see abuse immediately for what it is and reject the situation before it escalates"


Amen to that! I must be getting better in this area, because the place that I found myself after getting out of my awful marriage was turning out to be, very quickly, (or maybe I have learned to read the signs!YEAHHH!).. a SA type of place. A community center started by a very charismatic youth leader who left the church he had been serving in and took a bunch of people with him. It is led only by him (no elders, thus no accountability) as it is a community center and not a church. BUt the sacrements are being served and they meet to worship on Sunday Mornings and the list goes on... The reason he says it's not a church is because he will lose a lot of his funding if he claims that it is a church. When I approached him to tell him my concerns ie... not enough fellowship or teaching for the sheep, wondering since, we are not a church, was he my pastor??..ect. I told him that being in the midst of a divorce I felt that my 13 year old daughter and I needed more nurturing and that I had those questions listed above.
He wouldn't answer me. He asked me instead, what would I be able to get at a regular church that I wasn't getting there? I was tongue tied and stammering, "Well, I don't know....DUH>....." Boy did I feel stupid.

After thinking about it for a while though, I got mad. THere was no one I felt that I could talk to. Certainly nobody that could do anything. He called all the shots! That is when the lights started flashing "DANGER!!!!"

Soon after that my girl and I left. We are attending a church we loved at one time and left because of the termoil in our home and the division that the youth pastor was causing. Yes the same youth pastor spoken of above. whew... close call. Maybe now I am valuing myself a little more. I am learning about boundries. Healthy loving ones and I guess it is making a difference.